Cursed Bunny(62)

I tapped him lightly. He opened his eyes.

“Do you want me to untie you?”

His throat was constrained by the cord around it, so he blinked in answer.

As I undid the cord, I listlessly sang along with him.

… If I could make a wish

I wouldn’t know what to say.

What should I wish for

The bad times or the good times

I had no hope anymore for good times, but I didn’t want to wish for bad times, either. I was waiting for something but didn’t know what to hope for. There was no future. All of our survival skills were trapped in the past.

For some people, their lives are ruled by one shocking event reverberating through their survival instincts. Life shrinks into a trap made up of a shimmering moment in the past, a trap where they endlessly repeat that singular moment when they were surest of being alive. That moment is short, but long after it has passed, good times as well as bad slip like sand through their fingers as they meaninglessly repeat and confirm their survival. Those who are unaware of their lives slipping away while they are ensnared in the past—him, his grandfather, his mother, me—are in the end, whether alive or dead, ghosts of the past.

… If I could make one wish

I want to be just a little bit happier

If I’m too happy

I will miss the sadness

I released his neck and wrists.

“How did you do this?” I marveled. “How did you tie your own hands and noose?”

“I thought about it for a long time.” He seemed slightly proud of himself. “I had to do it alone, because if I made a mistake, I wouldn’t die but only get hurt, and that would mean a lot of suffering.”

I hugged him hard. I imagined him alone in that empty apartment, pondering for a long time the most efficient way of hanging himself.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Thank you.”

And he was gone. I was alone in his empty bathroom.

No one asked us, when we were still nameless

Whether we wanted to live or not

Now I wander the big city alone

Looking in doors and windows

Waiting and waiting for something …

There was nothing left for me to wait for.

But there I remained, standing in his bathroom, waiting for someone to miraculously find me, to release me from my ties to this life.